I sent yet another Mama home today after she was given medications for "therapeutic sleep" and she awoke eight hours later, very much not in labor. We spoke at length about her desire to have the baby now (a week shy of her due date) and how she was achey and so on and so forth. I gently told her that her body and her baby would work together to come at just the right time, that our bodies get better at being pregnant and giving birth with practice (this was her second, first had come spontaneously at 38 weeks so she probably felt overdue) and that sometimes the hardest part of pregnancy and labor was simply have the patience to wait to go into labor.
Our culture of social inductions has done women and babies such a world of harm. I'm not going to even go into all the of the reasons why women shouldn't jump into induced labors.
It's funny though, because right now, my feelings are just so contrary to popular thinking. Right now, I'm already missing being pregnant!
I remember after I had Sage I grieved the end of my pregnancy. I remember thinking "it was so easy to protect him when he was inside of me". I remember deeply missing the feel of him kicking inside of me.
This time around I'm in NO rush. Baby you can stay inside of my just as long as you want. I trust you to come when you're ready to be born. I welcome you with loving arms but I love feeling you moving inside of me, I love getting to know your haracter without being able to see or hear you. I love this special, intimate time we have together, just the two of us. When you're ready my uterus will massage you into readiness to breath, my moans will be the song you are born to, my cervix, and vulva, and legs will open to accomidate your passing from uterus to earthside and my hands will be the first to touch you and lift you into the light.
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2 comments:
Hi! You posted on my blog awhile back and I thought I'd stop by and read a bit. I've read a few posts and I'm starting to wonder if you work at the same hospital that my son was born at. Do you work in the city? I had a horrid experience there, but I was not in the midwife unit. They stuck me in L&D. Anyway, I don't know of any other hospital around that has a "midwife unit", or is reffered to as such, but I could be wrong.
Came here by the way of Radical Doula, and glad I did. It's great to read about local midwife stuff, gives me hope! I'm 23 Weeks along and I've been seeing a midwife since the beginning of my pregnancy at one of the downtown Minneapolis hospitals. Reading about things from such a kind and caring perspective calms some of the fears I'm having about the pregnancy (mainly delivery!).
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